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War of 1812
Another of the maritime issues was that of impressment. It was the most Violent issue between the two countries. This was because it dealt with sovereignty. Impressment involved the right to search for deserters. It also involved the right of any British officer to make an on-the-spot decision concerning a man's nationality. These same officers had the task of keeping their ships manned. This was difficult in view of the conditions that existed in the Royal Navy at that time. Poor food, hard work, and harsh discipline caused British sailors to desert by the thousands. Most of them ended up in America. The United States' merchant marine was quite short of sailors. Its growth required about five thousand additional sailors every year. This increased demand brought a wage hike to American sailors. This threat to British seapower was more than they could tolerate and resulted in their warships searching American merchant vessels and removing British fugitives.
The American government did not try to protect these British fugitives even when they sometimes claimed to have taken advantage of American naturalization. In those days most people considered it almost impossible to change one's nationality. The United States' complaint over impressment dealt with the search for deserters, and the abuses that accompanied it.
The British position was that they had the right of sovereignty to chase fugitive nationals anywhere up to a line where another nation's sovereignty barred that pursuit. Britain claimed no right to search American vessels in territorial waters of the United States. Or did the United States deny that Britain had the right to search American vessels in British territorial waters. It was a question of jurisdiction on the high seas, over which neither could claim sovereignty, which caused the problem. Britain never claimed the right to search vessels of the United States Navy. She did claim the right to search private vessels as she felt this involved no invasion of another nation's sovereignty. A new doctrine that was only beginning to take shape was the one accepted by the United States. It stated that “a nation's ships on the high seas were detached portions of its soil and therefore covered by its sovereignty.”
The abuses that accompanied the search and impressment of suspected deserters were extremely upsetting to the American public. The British naval officers, in view of the manpower problems they were having at the time, sometimes made mistakes and illegally impressed an American citizen. Though the British would correct these errors, it often took years to find and free an American they had illegally impressed. Americans considered this to be an insult to their sovereignty. They also felt that any nation that allowed the seizure and virtual enslavement of its citizens could not consider itself independent.
Another major issue often sited as a cause of the war was the interference with American trade. Britain made up it’s mind to blockade French possessions [next page]